


on time and travel

by sinequanon



Series: tiny bleach [12]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 13:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25849990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinequanon/pseuds/sinequanon
Summary: Karin is pretty much done with Soul Society asking her brother to save them, and she's not afraid to rant about it a little. Or a lot.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo & Kurosaki Karin & Kurosaki Yuzu
Series: tiny bleach [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/742554
Comments: 20
Kudos: 252





	on time and travel

**Author's Note:**

> Time travel stories are generally angsty, simply by virtue of being a "thing of last resort" sort of trope, so I decided to come up with a non-angsty version. I present to you Karin's thoughts on time travel.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late. --William Shakespeare's _The Merry Wives of Windsor_

<> <> <> <>

It's the beginning of the end when Karin finally loses her patience. The latest aspiring megalomaniac has only recently crawled out of his super-secret lair; there have been a few injuries, but no deaths. Ichigo has spent over a decade of his life fighting on behalf of the Shinigami (and doing it well), but there's something about _this time_ that has both Karin and Yuzu on edge.

So, it might only be the _beginning_ of the end, but Karin is done with letting her brother constantly put himself in danger. It's bad enough that Ichigo will do absolutely anything to protect their family; as his circle of influence widens, so do the twins' worries. When she and Yuzu speak with Goat-Face about it, their dad suggests maybe petitioning the Soul King for assistance, without being able to tell them exactly _how_ to do that. Asking Ichigo's school friends won't help, and Urahara is technically in the middle of some sort of do-not-disturb-under-any-circumstances experiment, so the twins decide to channel their brother a bit and improvise.

(For the record, this is both an excellent and a horrible idea.)

They set up something that could generously be called a shrine in their shared apartment, and Karin spends forty-five minutes complaining at the shine about all of the ways that Soul Society is backwards and dumb and doesn't deserve her brother's attention. The next day, she spends another half hour raging about how she's certain that everyone is going to die in this latest...whatever, and with Ichigo's luck, everyone will expect him to go back in time and fix things (which he would, but it would crush him in the meantime), and that if the Soul King is going to pull a stupid stunt like that, he needn't bother. As Ichigo's sisters, they have decided that their brother is not available for world-saving on dates before he was even born. There will be no exceptions.

Three days after that, the first few Shinigami die, and Ichigo feels terrible, despite not knowing the victims that well. Another few days brings even more fatalities. After listening for entirely too long to her brother fret about people he couldn't save, Karin goes home, steals Yuzu's apple off of their quasi-shrine, and bites into it viciously while she tells the Soul King how she feels about this entire scenario.

"...and another thing," she sums up, after almost an hour of venting, "If you want the past fixed so badly, how about pulling an actual Shinigami _forward_ in time, so that they can see what's wrong, then go back and fix their own problems?" Karin sets the core down with a huff when Yuzu calls her for dinner. She glares at the shrine for good measure. "And if you're going to use time travel to solve all of your problems, you might as well send two Shinigami, just to be certain that your lone representative won't make even _more_ of a mess."

Later, when Yuzu doesn't question her sister about the demolished apple, Karin assumes that it's because Yuzu is too polite to mention it, and has simply thrown the remains away.

(This is not what has happened.)

<> <>

A week after Karin's venting, the apartment complex is in an uproar about some random gentleman found wandering through the courtyard. This sort of gossip is questionable at best, but Karin is bored enough to go take a peek at the "maybe a hoodlum, but probably just a confused cosplayer", and Karin is glad that she does, because she would recognize Kuchiki Byakuya anywhere. How he senses her gaze, she couldn't say, but he notices her almost immediately and makes his way over to where she is gaping at him like a fish.

He greets her politely (too politely for Karin's nerves) and formally (too formally for someone he's met before) and then confirms all of her worst suspicions when he tells her he's looking for the Kurosaki family.

_Oh, boy._

She drags the Shinigami home with her and leaves him to drink tea with Yuzu while she calls Ichigo. She leaves her brother their now depressingly standard, "no one is sick, dead, or dismembered, but please come over as soon as you can" message and tries to figure out exactly how much they should tell past-Byakuya.

She also fights the urge to stick her tongue out at the shrine as she passes it, if only because she's not sure what would happen if she did.

Ichigo shows up about an hour later, and it says a lot about their lives that her brother's first comment when seeing their guest was a resigned, "What, are there dopplegangers now?"

Past-Byakuya is calm and collected as he explains that he has been given a mission by the Soul King to seek out the Kurosaki family.

" _Why_?" Ichigo asks, but Byakuya can't say.

Karin can, though, so she does. 

When she's done, Ichigo stares at her. Past-Byakuya stares at her. Yuzu just starts cheerfully preparing for another guest.

A week after Byakuya's arrival, pre-Visored Kensei shows up, just as brusque as the man the Kurosaki siblings know, but with one of the dumbest haircuts that Karin has ever seen. Karin doesn't laugh in his face, but Ichigo does.

(He also ends up beating the hell out of both Shinigami when they won't stop arguing, just to illustrate the seriousness of the situation.

And honestly, if the Soul King thinks that _this_ is the pair that can save them all, they're doomed.)

About a month into their guests' stay, the present war heats up, and Ichigo is called in to help. Her brother goes (because he wouldn't be Ichigo if he didn't), and it's the first time that younger Byakuya and Kensei can actually see how much Soul Society depends on her brother, because the Kurosakis have gone out of their way to keep their time travelers at the vaguest margins of the fighting. Both Karin and Yuzu can tell that it bothers them, even if they don't mention it. They do start talking about possible ways to fix things, though.

Then newly-minted Twelfth Division Captain Urahara Kisuke knocks on their door.

Yuzu takes it in stride, of course (because that's _her_ superpower), but Karin is strangely disquieted by this person who only vaguely resembles Hat 'n Clogs but comes off as alarmingly reserved. She's not sure what terrifies her more: the idea that this persona is a ruse, or the thought that it isn't. She's also irritated because she clearly mentioned _two_ Shinigami--she knows how to count--and she and Yuzu have no intention of running a Shinigami bed and breakfast out of their apartment.

She doesn't even want to consider the possibility that even more time traveling Shinigami might show up.

(This is also when Karin vows that if she ever meets the Soul King, she's going to punch him in the face.)

On the bright side, Karin now knows without a doubt that time travel _is_ a giant pain.

**Author's Note:**

> In my mind, the Soul King adores the Kurosakis, but he also doesn't mind messing with them a little.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
